Waking up early was a habit. Ever after the three years that he spent separated into atoms of water, lost amidst the drifting open, it was habit for the man to get up at the crack of dawn. It had been drilled into him after years of serving as a police officer and certainly a near-death experience wasn’t going to change that. Yes, as exhausting as it was in those sleepless nights at the beginning of this year, Jorge would still push himself to get up with the sun. His sleeping was better, now, but there was still a long road ahead on his trip to recovery – the most important aspect being that he needed to regain some control over his abilities.

The hospital has been more than kind to him. After his years of service to New York, and to the well being of the people in general, the hospital had agreed to allow Jorge to stay in the hospital for as long as he needed to get in control of his abilities again. It was difficult at first but after spending so long in the middle of the ocean, and unable to always keep Gemma at his side, Jorge had agreed to the option, feeling that it was best to remain in the capable hands of medical staff.

The months rolled by. Jorge steadily began to gain more and more control of his abilities. He was glad for this but it was hard an grueling work. Those first few days were hard to just keep himself pieced together but thankfully Gemma stayed nearby so that she could cancel out his abilities whenever it needed to happen. Slowly, more and more, Jorge could go longer without his fiancée nearby, until finally he was able to spend his first night without her watching over him. It was an achievement, to be sure, but always, in the back of his mind, Jorge feared a relapse. Justified, but it was something that he needed to work on.

Today was the beginning of Jorge’s last week in the hospital. He would be released on Friday, the doctors and professionals firmly believing that Jorge had a good sense of control now. Spurred on by their praise, Jorge himself was beginning to feel almost like his old self again. However, his powers did require some fine-tuning. The case wasn’t that he couldn’t control water at all, it was more that now he had too much control over it. It like everything he touched was made of eggshells – too fragile. If he tried to cause just a little bit of water to swirl in a cup, it was explode out onto the ceiling, if he tried to manipulate a strand of water, it would fly through the air and pierce the wall like a spear; he needed to get them wrangled.

That was today’s exercise. Sitting in the large and open physical therapy room, at six o’clock in the morning meant that it was pretty empty. Even the nurses and therapists haven’t arrived yet. Thankfully they were sweet to him and offered him use of the space whenever he needed it, so long as his activities didn’t disturb anyone else when they were there. At this hour the room was empty so he felt more comfortable in trying to fine tune his abilities.

Marching across the room in his Miami Dolphins sweat pants and a loose tank top, the thinner but toned Jorge Cervantes carried in his large hands a glass bowl that sloshed with water inside. Making sure to not spill any, the black-and-silver haired detective found a training mat in the corner of the room where one of the walls was all glass and afforded him a view of the city at this early morning hour. A nice and peaceful place to practice was exactly what he needed.

With the bowl set down on the ground in front of him, Jorge took a calming breath as he idly scratched at his beard. Settling himself down, Jorge sat cross-legged in front of the bowl, took several deep breathes, and closed his eyes. The specialists said that he needed to focus on calm thoughts. He had clear control over his abilities, but they were grabbing at thigs with boxing gloves on; he could do it but it wasn’t precise. Precision was what he needed. So, eyes closed, Jorge tried to clear his mind of any thoughts or fears, and instead just focused on the water he could sense sitting in front of him.

Raising his hands, Jorge kept his palms flat against one another. Slowly he separated them, his fingertips still connected to one another, causing the water in the bowl to shakily respond. The water began to lift from the bowl, an undulating, floating blob of water that looked spastic and ready to rush towards every corner of the room. However the watermancer kept his control, willing the water to pull closer to itself, forming into a tight ball. The water agreed, mirroring his mental request and floated in a near perfect sphere before him.

Feeling an ache in his mind to just let go, Jorge forced himself to maintain his control. Turning his hands, he breathed heavily, his hands shaking he turned them so they one hand was up and the other was down. His fingers arched, Jorge strengthened his resolved and pushed that into the sphere of water. It shuddered in response but stubbornly agreed to his request, shakily reforming itself, this time becoming a more complicated shape with six smooth sides – a cube.

Cautiously he opened his eyes and smiled. His hold on the cube was water was fragile, but it was a place to start. It was working…he was doing it…he only hoped that nothing would come in to disturb this leap forward for him…

Balance, as Rumi once said, was about holding on and letting go. Juliette had taken those words to heart over the past few months.

During her second summer in New York City, she had overextended herself, and then promptly secluded herself. She was learning that perhaps balance was not her strong suit.

She had, a few months back, been working as a full-time nurse before she had quit to join the X-men. It was a move that had seemed to make sense at the time, but looking back, it felt rash. What exactly had prompted her to leave behind everything she knew and join a mutant superteam? Whatever it had been eluded her, and it seemed foolish to spend time analyzing it. She was on the team, and that was that.

It was the rest of her time that was the problem. She was doing a bit of volunteering at the Sanctuary, and she was doing little things around the Mansion, including teaching one or two health classes every couple of weeks. Other than that though, her time between training and missions was wide open - which also meant that her wallet was depressingly empty.

So, she had decided to see if she couldn’t take a few shifts a week at the hospital again. It had been difficult, considering she had quit a high-up position before, but she had made a few friends on the hospital board during her time there, which made things a little bit easier. A couple of weeks and a lot of paperwork later, and she had managed to secure an on-call position with just a few shifts every now and then. Basically, she would fill in when and where they needed her.

That morning, she was working in between physical therapy and long-term care wards, filling in for a nurse who had contracted pneumonia. The shift was nothing too strenuous, but it did mean that she had to work the night shift.

She was doing one of her last rounds of the night, enjoying the view of the sunrise that peeked through the curtains in most of her rooms, when she noticed a patient already up in one of the open rooms used for physical therapy. Not just up, in fact, but working on some sort of exercise.

Juliette couldn’t see exactly what she was doing from her angle, but it didn’t look like any kind of exercise she had seen before. Intrigued, she stepped into the room to get a better look. Floating in front of the man was a perfectly smooth cube of water.

It was beautiful, really. Without a doubt it was the result of some sort of water mutation. She stood still with her clipboard against her chest, watching. The man looked as though he was concentrating hard on what he was doing, so she let him have another second or two. The problem was, she was pretty sure the physical therapy wards were supposed to be closed until at least seven. It was only six.

Quietly, she cleared her throat to make her presence known. “Sir, I’m sorry, but this room isn’t supposed to be used until seven,” she said.

It was proving to not be as difficult as it had been in the past few months. Jorge could feel the water bending to his will pretty easily, but the problem was more in that he needed to hone it. Earlier in the year, doing this would have resulted in the ball of water exploding everywhere around the room, soaking everything through to its core. With practice Jorge was beginning to get close to the level of control he had before he had vanished but there was still work to be done; practice makes perfect, as they say.

With a sigh Jorge could feel the strain of his manipulation pounding in the back of his head. The shape of the sphere was easily to maintain, it was all about keeping the water moving, flowing over the endless curve of its sides so that it was perpetually chasing its tail, like a puppy. But what he attempted to do next was a tad bit more difficult. With a steady shift in the positions of his hands, he tried to form a more unnatural shape to the floating glob of water, something more geometric.

It was difficult and Jorge could feel the pull at the back of his mind, but he knew that he could maintain it if he just continued to focus; he didn’t feel exhausted yet. So, with that in mind, he attempted to smooth out the sides more and more until he had six equally smooth planes. The cube was a feat for him but it wasn’t the challenge that he really needed it to be. He needed to push his limits – he needed to get more complex.

A deep, steadying breath rolled out from between his lips; slowly his fingers twisted, as if he were winding the strands of a spider web between his fingers. He twisted and weaved with his mind, the water itself shuddering before bending to his will. The cube was impressive, but Jorge wasn’t done with it. He began to thin out the corners, pulling water away from the interior of the cube and thickening it long the skeletal frame of the cube. More weaving and the water cube became something more akin to a tesseract-like shape, a cube within a cube, entirely made of water. Oh, but it was not an easy task.

The strain was easy to see on Jorge’s face. This was a tough thing to do. He had, of course, been able to easily do something similar back before all this happened, but now it was clear that it was decidedly less easy. The water fought him, his mind felt like it was weakening by the second, but still, he pushed on, he tried, he just wanted to see how long he could push this. Besides, it wasn’t as if anything was going to distract him from doing so. This was just him testing out his limi—

>> ”Sir, I’m sorry, but this room isn’t supposed to be used until seven…”

His eyes snapped open. In that brief moment of surprise, Jorge felt a sudden twinge of fear and confusion, but it was replaced when he turned and spotted the nurse scrubs. If it had just been a moment of being startled, he could have lived with that, but the tesseract of water he was crafting had also responded to the surprise. Jorge jumped and, in the process, completely lost his hold on the watery sculpture he struggled to maintain. With a fumble, Jorge cursed under his breath as the liquid undulated pathetically before it flopped into a large glob on the ground. A splash echoed through the room as Jorge tensed up, wincing as the majority fell on his lap. He sighed, after a moment, feeling the wetness soaking through his sweatpants everything underneath, and sighed. A headache was beginning to form at the back of his head but he pushed through it, instead looking up to find the source of the voice that had startled him.

The woman was standing close by, the same he had seen in the medical scrubs from before. She wasn’t one that he actually recognized but this was a big hospital and there were a lot of people. He then began to zero in on the statement she had made – it wasn’t seven yet. Seven? The seconds ticked by as he bnegan to realize what was wrong and why he was being spoken to. When it finally dawned on him, the wet and funnily enough pathetic looking detective snorted.

”Sorry,” he said with a soft smile. ”Ugh, the nurse, Gloria, usually lets me come and go as I need to. So I don’t startle others during regular hours of operation,” he then gestured to himself. ”As you can see.” A tired grin and Jorge slowly moved onto his feet, a groan on his lips before he wavered on his two feet and caught himself on a nearby piece of equipment to keep from falling over. That took more out of them than he thought. ”Whoa…” he said bracing himself to keep from toppling. ”Heh…might have done a tad more than I should have.”

It was always hard when you were taking a friend to A&E. Still worse when they call you on the phone, at 2 am in the morning needing to get to hospital. She had arrived there, finding Catherine barely conscious, and a blood stained knife on the floor. The city could be so lonely sometimes. Then a mad panic for the phone, calling 911, giving the details of the address. Somebody HAD to go with her...

One ambulance ride later and Rebecca had been left to her own devices after falling asleep at the hospital. Waking to find Catherine asleep, freshly bandaged again, with her parents contacted, she decided to go for an explore. She'd visit Catherine again when she was awake, needless to say her parents would handle it better than she could.

Now she was in a ward marked "Physical rehabilitation", she'd needed to do this more than once, gradually reassembling herself after one rogue wind blew her away. That wasn't fun. Some mutants had it easy when their powers went wrong...she really did not.

Looking threw the doors you could see the usual patients you could expect to find on these wards, people getting used to wheelchairs or synthetic limbs etc. Rebecca let them keep their privacy as much as she could, only giving the occasional glance. She then froze as she glanced into the next room.

Water... and it wasn't acting the way it should. It was hovering in the air...she started breathing heavily in spite of herself. Water did not fly. Water did not fly. She jumped as the near cubicle shape splashed to the floor. She let out a whimpered squeak , like a frightened schoolgirl.

She looked further into the room. There was a nurse standing with her back to Rebecca, it didn't look like she was the one responsible for...that thing. But the answer to that question was provided quickly.

>> "Heh... might have done a tad more than I should have"

A gruff-looking man was bracing himself on one of the pieces of gym equipment. Rebecca squeaked again at the sight of him. Part of her wanted to run away at the quickest possible pace, but somehow her pride or her empathy kept her from doing that. She wasn't about to run away from a man who looked like he was recovering from something pretty major, no matter how much his powers disconcerted her.

"Was it you that was doing that?" She said to the man. She felt like a child again, confronted with her bogeyman that her brother used to scare her with on halloween nights. Only this time it wasn't going to go away when she woke up from the nightmare. She began trembling slightly in spite of herself...this was only going to get more embarrassing.

Juliette had not done a good enough job of making her presence known carefully, she realized. There man displayed a visible jump of surprise, which sent a shudder through the cube of water. The sharp, smooth edges warped into an unruly shape before it splashed on the ground.

The nurse made a small noise and moved her feet out of the way of the spray, just barely managing to avoid it. She felt bad, now. It looked like it had taken a great deal of concentration to get that shape before. She could have very well just left him alone and pretended that she hadn’t seen anything, but instead she had felt the need to interrupt.

“I see,” Juliette nodded at his explanation. Of course they would let that happen. Some people weren’t all that fond of mutants, and if he needed to work on strengthening that, then mixing with other patients wouldn’t be the best idea. She hadn’t been aware that the hospital offer that service, though. “I’m sorry for startling you, then. I’m covering for Gloria today, and I hadn’t been told about your situation. That was really amazing, what you did just now, though.”

She saw the signs of his dizziness as he began to stand. Juliette moved forward, ignoring the puddle on the ground, and attempted to help the man as he began to topple. He grabbed onto some equipment nearby, but she offered her arm instinctively anyway. Her shoes began to sop up the water underneath them, making her flash back to a previous experience at the same hospital. She seemed to have a knack for getting wet there.

“Why don’t you sit dow-” Juliette had started to suggest when she was interrupted by a high-pitched squeal. The nurse whipped around to see a blonde woman around her age standing in the door.

The woman had a visitor’s badge, so she clearly wasn’t just another patient out of bed. What she was doing in the physical therapy ward, however, was a different question. There typically weren’t many visitors in that ward, and hospital visiting hours didn’t even start for at least another two hours. She had no reason to be in there, especially if she was going to be gawking at people in long-term care, many of whom had physical deformities and struggled to do what they did in that room as it was.

>>"Was it you that was doing that?"

Oh, so she was afraid of mutants, then. That didn’t exactly make Juliette want to ignore the rules for her. The brunette sighed and bit her lip before deciding to bring up the issue of room access with this second person. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but you can’t be in here right now. If you’ve come to see someone, you’ll have to come back when visiting hours begin.”

The entirety of the world tilted for the dizzy police officer as he felt himself start to fall upon standing. Instinctively he reached out, clamping his hand down on a nearby piece of exercise equipment (he wasn’t fairly sure what it was) and held himself upright. He had had these dizzy spells before but it wasn’t as bad as they used to be, just a sign that he was over exerting his abilities. The cube of water would have been fine if he had just left it alone, but he had to go and push it, attempting to sculpt a tesseract from the liquid. However, even this would not have been as bad if he hadn’t had been startled. The sudden intrusion of another person caused the detective quickly lose his control. He tried to stop it, to catch it wildly with his mind, but to no avail.

SPLASH. The water splashed everywhere, but mostly upon his pants and the bottom of his shirt. Jorge winced, trying to push passed the dizziness by holding himself up, even gripping the arm of the nurse who had moved to his side. This was embarrassing, to say the least, but he would apologize the second that his world stopped tilting to the left.

She had apologized for startling him and explained that she was covering for the nurse whom he usually interacted with and hadn’t been told. It made sense to him so the man merely nodded his head through his closed eyes. ”Ah, my…um…apologies for catching you off guard.” He sighed but a smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. ”And thank you. All in the wrists…”

Jorge trailed off as the dizziness settled in. He held onto the woman still who had directed him towards a nearby chair he could sit down on. Jorge was already in the process of doing so when a squeak suddenly broke through the silence in the room. He lifted his find to find a startled and terrified looking blonde who was situated near the entrance to the room. She wasn’t part of the medical staff and, actually, looked as if she were just a visitor to the hospital; there was a name tag on her top but he couldn’t quite make it out through his blurring vision.

The nurse, standing steadfast to the rules of the establishment, informed the blonde that she couldn’t be here until the beginning of normal visiting hours. Jorge was feeling bad that he had stirred up anything, especially if the blonde was not a fan of mutants. Still, Jorge had not exactly expected company to roll by at six o’clock in the morning, so why was he apologizing? Bah, he didn’t have the mental capacity to think about it right now and instead just took a calming breath, giving the blonde woman a friendly smile and a nod as his dizziness started to wear off.

He glanced to the nurse again, giving her an encouraging smile. ”I’m off. Just…you know…still readjusting to things.”

Most of the staff knew of the detective’s situation, but he shouldn’t have assumed that everyone did. He was a police detective, one who had done a lot of good to the city, and had been stuck in the hospital after he was found on the beach. Three years he had spent in a liquid state, floating in scattered molecules across the ocean until, finally, he managed to pull himself together. Gloria was one of his biggest fans so allowed him use of the physical therapy room before and after hours so he didn’t startle guests or other staff. Heh, it seemed as if her careful plans were foiled.

He looked up at the blonde again and gave her another friendly smile. ”Yes, by the way,” he answered. ”That was me. Bit rusty, though.” He grumbled as he looked down to his wet pants again. He would dry them off in a moment but he needed to take a moment to gather himself before he tried.

The nurse wanted her to leave. Great, now she was breaking the rules AND being an anti-mutant bigot at the same time? That may have been it, the way she'd reacted would have been typical of what the nurse had seen surely? In fairness she was here without full permission, and it was only because she couldn't remember the way to the exit that she'd bothered to explore. She was a little to focused on Catherine at that moment in time. She looked into the Nurses' stern face with sincerity.

"I'm sorry...I got lost after staying with someone...couldn't find the exit. I've been in this kind of ward before... as a patient...thought it might help me find my way around and have a little explore of the hospital while I was finding it."

She looked at the smiling man. He was trying to be as friendly as he could. She tried to smile back. It wasn't going to be easy though, considering his power. Poor guy...he looked like his whole world had come tumbling down. The near pathetic sight of him, looking like an old man in a hospital in need of assistance , was oddly calming to her. He wasn't able to hurt her even if he wanted to. "I know what it's like to have to regain control of your body..." she let her hand disassemble into sand, then reformed it in a swift motion.

"I don't like wind and I really dislike water...that's what I was scared of...not you being a mutant...well not for the reason you probably thought I was anyway."

She took a few tentative steps towards the man, very slowly, as if she didn't want to startle him. "I-I'm Rebecca...What's your name? When did you get those...powers?" This was totally inappropriate and she knew it. But she couldn't let this get away from her. She had to face her fear. She was in no danger, and she doubted the nurse could stop her.

"I need to do this..." she turned to the Nurse with this statement. "You understand don't you?" She was probably going to be shunted out at the next available opportunity, but this was certainly worth a shot. This wasn't going to cure her fear of water...but maybe it could help somehow.

“Don’t worry, take your time with it,” Juliette returned his smile and waved away both his apology and his statement about adjusting to things in one go. She had been the one that interrupted him and ruined what looked to be a great thing, after all. There was no need for him to apologize to her of all people.

She turned her attention back to the interloper after a second. She was claiming the usual spiel about getting lost and ending up in the wrong spot. It figured. That was what people always defaulted to when confronted about being in the wrong area without permission.

Juliette opened her eyes a little wider as the woman’s hand fell apart. Well, it didn’t really fall apart, it disassembled into tiny particles of sand. She hadn’t been expecting that.

Alright, so she wasn’t a bigot. For the most part, anyway, but she still wasn’t authorized to be there, and she was frankly being quite rude to the man.

>>"You understand don't you?"

The nurse took a step back, sighed heavily, and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to dissuade the oncoming headache. Yes, she understood. She understood better than most. She could have taken that opportunity to show the woman just how much she understood, but she wasn’t really in the mood to join the train of showing off the mutant powers. She’d had a long night, and all she really wanted to do was sit down and have some coffee. She did not want to be arguing with random people that had wandered into the hospital about policy. However, there was still another half an hour between her and that.

“Fine, you know what? It’s been a long night, and I don’t really feel like debating this with you. Go ahead,” Juliette flicked her hand away from the bridge of her nose, as if showing that she was relinquishing control. She glanced at the patient apologetically, and let him take the lead. If he wanted to let the woman do whatever she was going to do, then that was his choice. She would intervene if needed, and she would be there to supervise, but otherwise she would stand to the side and let the woman have her moment.

It was going to take time, he knew that. Hell, Jorge had already invested the last year with this concept, trying to get a handle on his powers again, something that he had never thought would happen to him. But after his time spent on the ocean, it was clear that he needed to get used to certain things again. His control over water was powerful, but it was unpredictable at the moment. He didn’t have the absolute control that he used to have and it was a goal that he was trying to attain every day. In the beginning it had been hard, learning to take baby steps again, but slowly he marched on until finally he was getting some control back. It wasn’t perfect, mind you, but it was still an achievement considering where the man was a year ago.

However, at this point, it was clear that he had over done it just a tiny bit. Jorge felt that wave of dizziness blindside him. He had to grip onto the nurse, hoping that she could kept him centered until the sensation passed. She was a good woman and kindly helped him to claim a seat so that he could breathe through it. Boy would he be happy when he didn’t have to worry about feeling like this again. But one step at a time, he reminded himself, one step at a time.

The nurse shared an encouraging smile with him, but she didn’t seem to appreciate being interrupted by the appearance of another individual at the door. The blonde wandered in, seemingly scared of what she had just witnessed Jorge do. The nurse attempted to shoo her, but the blonde seemed insistent that she should stay.

The woman explained that she got lost. She was here with someone else when she decided to wander the hospital. When she turned her eyes on him, Jorge could feel the fear emanating off of her, but it wasn’t because of him specifically, but more because of what he could do. If she had any anti-mutant sentiment, she probably would have started running, but she stayed and instead revealed that they at one point had a similar problem.

Jorge was amazed, to say the least, when he watched the woman’s hand dissolve. At first it seemed as if it were into nothing, that is until he caught sight of the sparkling sand that drifted away from her limb. The blonde admitted she understood his predicament and that she didn’t care for the wind or water, using that as her explanation towards her reaction. It felt justified to Jorge and he nodded in understanding; however he was a little thrown off by the assault of questions that were thrown towards him.

”Oh…umm..” He took a second to remember all her questions through the haze that his dizziness left on his mind. He gave her another kind smile. ”Jorge…Cervantes. And…when I was fifteen?”

The nurse seemed a little annoyed with the girl but it was clear that her shift had been a tough one. She relented, giving the woman the ahead as she stepped away. Jorge caught the look on her face, the apologetic one for the other woman’s seeming inappropriateness. However she wasn’t leaving the room either and instead just stepped off to the side as a means of still maintaining a presence. It would seem that the nurse would continue to be protective of the man by keeping around just in case the blonde started to bother him. Jorge smirked thankfully towards her and gave her a small nod to indicate that he was okay --- for now.

He then turned back to the blonde, the kindness twinkling in his eyes. ”It’s nice to meet, you, Rebecca. And you don’t have to be scared of what I can do…at least not right now,” he said. ”It seems I’m tapped out.” He took a steadying breath, the dizziness finally wearing off. However, he looked down at his soaked pants and shirt and sighed. ”However, I would like to change clothes, if no one minds? I may be able to manipulate water but it still feels cold.” He gave them both a kindly smirk.

Rebecca smiled gratefully at the nurse. This was pretty rude, highly unorthodox behavior. She could see the distaste in her face. She wasn't going to hurt this man, she just wanted to...understand somehow? Was it that? Understand? She at least understood why the nurse stayed in the room, that was probably as close to protocol as she could get without ousting Rebecca from the room. She couldn't say for sure what her motivations were... But she felt relief as the man nodded in understanding about her fear of water.

"N-nice to meet you Jorge...I-I've been like this pretty much since birth." She said quietly, childishly. This was no bogeyman come to douse her in water, not even her brother waiting with a bucket of water balanced on the door. This was just a middle-aged man with soaked trousers. She laughed at his wise-crack about cold water.

"For me, it's agony in my sand form." She said to the man called Jorge. "I can bathe, drink, but I need to be super careful as I can't sleep in human form." Maybe it would help him to talk about these issues with someone who understood? She needed to spend more time with this guy, fears needed to be conquered.

"And of course, I'm not going to stop you, I'd want to change straight away were I in your shoes." Another question came to her, this one widening her eyes with the fear of speculation. " How much could you do when you were... *ahem* at your strongest?" Something told her that he didn't limit himself to just cubes of water back then.

The nod that the man - Jorge - gave her told her that he was alright with the predicament, strange as it might have been. Juliette couldn’t say that she would have the same reaction if she were in his shoes, but she certainly commended him for it.

The nurse stood just a few feet away from the two of them leaning against a support structure used by people relearning how to walk. She had to stop herself from yawning and interrupting the conversation. It had been a long night, and she hadn’t been anticipating seeing anything interesting. After all, her patients were supposed to be asleep for the majority of her shift.

She nodded when Jorge said he was going to get changed. It was funny how much mutations differed, really. Some mutants could feel the effects of what they were doing, while others, like Sam and herself, couldn’t.

“I’ll be here if you need assistance,” Juliette told him. “Though, I’m sure you know that by now.” Working in a different department was a bit like trying to find her way through a maze that was just slightly different from the one that she had memorized. She had no idea how long any of the patients had been there, what their situation or extent of injury was, or how well they knew the day-to-day rules of the place. It seemed as though the man has been there for a while, though, so she figured she wouldn’t have to explain how call buttons worked.

She might have gone and made sure that Jorge made to his room and back alright had he been a different patient, but he seemed entirely capable. Besides, she was not about to leave Rebecca alone in the room where she could potentially wreck a great deal of habit. Juliette didn’t really feel like explaining to the custodial staff why the physio room was covered in sand.

Juliette turned to Rebecca, hoping to spark up some conversation and gauge her honest. “Can I ask what brought you to the hospital in the first place?” She asked, keeping her tone less pointed than before.

This really was the strangest meeting the police detective had ever come across, especially concerning the amount of time he had already spent here in the hospital. Thankfully most of the staff was increasingly kind to him and if there was an anti-mutant bone in their bodies, they never showed it to his face. As a matter of fact, everyone actually seemed eager for him to succeed. Maybe they just wanted to free up one of their rooms, finally, but whatever the case their encouragement was a comfort to the detective. Even now the man was finding himself at the mercy of the hospital staff and, of course, they proved to be a vigilant as ever.

Jorge was starting to come out of the dizzy spell that wanted to knock him on his ass. The blonde woman, the one whom he had witnessed partially change herself into sand, seemed nice enough, if a little intrusive, but the nurse clearly wanted to stay at his side to ensure that he was safe and in good health. He had given her a nod that he was fine and would continue to be, as he addressed Rebecca and her inquiries.

Rebecca seemed to embody the image of a scared rabbit. She was sweet but there was clearly an issue there when it came to her and water. He tried to appear as non-threatening as possible and it seemed to do some good towards the younger woman’s mood but it wasn’t going to make him seem less terrible instantly. All Jorge had to do was remain patient and not make any sudden (watery) moves.

She had explained that life was tough for her and her mutation. She could still do a lot of things but she needed to be ultra-cautious about them. He nodded in understanding as this was a matter that Jorge had had to conquer when he first showed up on the shore a year ago. It was painful how difficult it was for the detective to keep himself pieced together. That fear that he would suddenly lose his grip again and be found soaking through his bed entirely, dripping on the floor, was a fear that tended to keep him up in the middle of the night.

But as much as Jorge wanted to continue this conversation, he was just a bit scared that he was going to end up making himself sick by sitting in his wet clothing. He asked to be excused, in his usually, humorous tone, and shared a small smile with both ladies as he slowly stood up from his seat. The world didn’t tilt and he didn’t feel any nausea so he guessed that was a good sign. Before he could get too far, he was stopped again the blonde who seemed curious on one final matter – how strong was he at his peak?

He paused, glanced to the nurse before he turned back to Rebecca and tried to frame his answer as to not completely terrifying, but remain honest. He lowered his voice so that only the two of them could hear now. ”At fifteen I parted the ocean up to a hundred feet from the shore. And I survived drifting in the ocean as nothing more than particles of separated water for three years.” He shrugged. ”I guess I would be pretty strong.” He turned and dipped his head respectfully to both individuals. ”Ladies. If you’ll pardon me.”

With that Jorge stepped out of the room and headed back for his own. He was only down the hallway. As a matter of fact, if they watched him leave, dripping a trail of water from the cuffs of his pant legs with every step, they would see him reach just about the end of the hall before turning and stepping into a room. Out of habit, Jorge closed the door behind him and sighed as he marched over to his little dresser next to his bed. Slowly he slipped out of the wet clothing and dried himself off before reaching for dryer belongings. This was turning into an interesting day.

Rebecca let Jorge head back to his room, keeping a reasonably wide berth from him, just to be safe. Upon hearing her question, he turned his face towards her. Rebecca couldn't help but feel 10 years old again, the lowering of his voice only contributed to the general sense that this man was very, very powerful, even if he was remaining quiet. Sand moved quietly too, didn't stop her slaughtering that cabal of Church of Humanity acolytes.

This man could part the seas of an ocean when at a reasonable level of strength? Rebecca took a polite step away from him at that. Her mind was suddenly racing again. She couldn't afford to get on the bad side of this guy. "That is...impressive, or scary, b-but kinda both" she said nervously. Jorge if he felt like it would be able to cause her immense pain, and probably kill her for good measure. Even if he wasn't very strong at the moment, it wouldn't be long before he was truly the stuff of nightmares for her. Rebecca couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief as he left the scene.

The nurse turned to her, seemingly in a more friendly way. Asking why she was in the Hospital. She couldn't help but look at the floor, Catherine's issues weren't for discussion with random people, even if she was a nurse. "A friend of mine...needed my help getting to hospital...She's in a trauma ward I think. I had to leave her, and got lost." This was what had happened, even if she had taken the long way round, there was something about this particular ward that comforted her, she was after all pretty familiar with these sorts of wards.

"W-what's your name? Have you worked here for long" Rebecca wanted to change the subject, she was nervous at the best of times when discussing these topics, and while blood was something she was used to seeing (she'd killed before after all), killing bad guys was a whole lot different to a friend struggling with depression. She looked up at the nurse, smiling as best she could. It had been a very rough night.

Juliette blinked at the man’s statement as he left the room. Parting the sea at fifteen. That seemed unthinkable. She didn’t have a ton of basis to know what the usual abilities for water mutants were, but that certainly didn’t sound like anything mundane. Parting the sea was, well… A feat that must have been incredible to witness, though the idea of it certainly seemed to terrify Rebecca.

The subject about what brought the other woman to the hospital seemed to be a touchy one. The way she skirted around giving an actual answer gave Juliette the impression that it hadn’t been something like a fall that had brought her friend there. She nodded and didn’t ask more. The friend wasn’t her patient, so she didn’t need to know.

“You really shouldn’t be wandering around in a hospital, though. There’s a reason we have strict policies on visitors.” There was a touch of sympathy in her voice that accompanied the reprimanding words. Yes, she was there for what was probably a hard thing to deal with, but she was still breaking some pretty big rules. There were patients that needed to be isolated, ones that were going through tough recoveries, and ones that were quite dangerous. The last thing that some of them needed was a wandering woman who seemed to have a penchant for personal questions.

Juliette was just glad that she had managed to intercept her (or the other way around, rather), before she had gotten any further. If she had found one of the quietest, more secluded wards from what she assumed the woman was trying to say was the ICU, then who knew where she would have gone after that.

“Juliette,” she told her. She paused took a second before answering Rebecca’s next question. How long had she worked there, really? In some respects, that was all just a matter of opinion. “I’ve… worked here for about a year and a half, on and off. At the moment, I'm just part-time. I’ve been doing some other things of late.”

She refrained from going into any further detail. Even when talking with a mutant, she never knew whether or not to bring up the fact that she was part of the X-men. If asked directly, perhaps she would have said something, but it didn’t feel right to say in that moment.

It didn’t take long for the detective to make himself more comfortable. As a matter of fact, it took minutes flat. He remembered when he was first starting to get control of his abilities again, that even this task was slightly terrifying. After all, when you live in constant fear that you are going to liquefy like a cube of ice on a hot countertop, even the most mundane of tasks seemed to carry with them a heavy weight. Now, as a sure sign of his recuperation, returning to his room, discarding his soaked clothing and replacing them with dryer clothes, seemed like the easiest task in the world. His time here was definitely coming to an end.

Sitting in his room, pulling on a fresh pair of socks and running the palms of his hands over the smooth material of his black sweats, the man took a steadying breath. His eyes roamed around the room, taking everything in sight. This has essentially been his home for the last year, a place for him to gather himself again after the terrible circumstances that brought him here. While there was still some anxiety just thinking about those times, he knew that it was something he could learn from too; a lesson to help him move through the trauma and become a little more enriched. What that lesson was, he wasn’t quite sure yet, but wisdom comes with time.

After a moment of thought, the detective wondered if he even should rejoin the two ladies who had interrupted his practice earlier. They were nice enough, sure, but was he really in the mood to speak with others? Yes, he was. It was nice to see unfamiliar faces and, as much as the man wanted to get back to his practice or settle into bed and await his fiancées next visit, getting up and moving around was going to prove to be productive.

Adjusting his last sock and ensuring that his soaked clothing was set aside to be cleaned later, the man climbed out of bed and returned to the long hall that he had just walked moments before. As he made his way back to the room, he could hear the sounds of discussion echoing from it. The two ladies were talking, greeting, etc., and he walked in, sharing a kindly smile with the both of them. Rebecca, the blonde, still seemed like she was scared of him. He really did hope that it would abate some with meeting him rather than just judging him based on his abilities. But he’d understand if she weren’t entirely comfortable.

Looking between the two of them, he gave them a nod as he stood off to the side, not in any way looking like the weakened man he had been moments before. ”Thank you for excusing me,” he lightly. ”I’m only glad I wasn’t wearing the gown when that happened.”